Hello there, burghardtmfg.

Allow me to join this thread and provide some insights about your issue with QuickBooks job costing.

Right now, you'll need to add an invoice to show the rates on your Job Profitability Detail report. In your case, since you'll need to follow specific invoice process and uses a third party provider for your payroll, I recommend contacting your payroll provider to check if they have other ways on how to get time post billed before it is imported in QuickBooks.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with, I'd be delighted to answer them for you.

Kudos for the Comparison!

I just started working with a new client using QB Premier Consultant 2019 with some squirrelly things...

- Doing job costing for Spec Houses AND Billable Jobs

- Some of billable jobs may span years, of course, spec houses will span years

- Spec house job costs lives on the Balance sheet, Billable Jobs probably on Income statement.

- Want to break down labor by the phases of the job, ie. Drywall Labor, Painting Labor, etc.

I'm a Pro Advisor, no apologies, I've not done Job Costing in QB, hoping to shorten the learning curve.

Hi there, @HorseDancer!

You can consider assigning a class to your jobs so you can break down each of its phases. I'll be happy to share a few insights and help you from there.

First off, class tracking allows you to consider each phase of your job costing as one category every time you enter and record your transactions.

Thus said, you can simply add classes from the Class field when creating and recording your transactions for your job costing.

Once completed and you're about to break down the labor of your job costing, you can pull up and customize your report by classes.

For your additional reference, I'll be including an article you can read to earn more about your job costing: Tracking Job Costs in QuickBooks Desktop.

As always, you can visit our Help Articles age for QuickBooks Desktop if in case you need to learn some "How do I" steps.

It'll be always my pleasure to help if you have any other concerns, I'd be delighted to answer them for you.

I appreciate the complete details of your concern, @Anonymous.

Let me provide you with details on how to ensure that job costing works on your end.

First, let's set up your account's preferences.

       1. Go to the Edit menu.
       2. Choose Preferences.
       3. Select Accounting menu.
                   a. Under the Company Preferences tab, ensure to check the following tick boxes:

                               > Prompt to assign classes

                               > Use class tracking
                   b. Click Ok.

        4. Go to Payroll & Employees menu.

                   a. Click the Company Preferences tab.

                   b. Mark the Job Costing, Class and Item tracking for paycheck expenses tick box.

                   c. Select whether to track by Entire Paycheck or Earnings Item.
                   d. Click Ok.

Once completed, let's ensure to set your additions, deductions or company contributions payroll items to Track Expenses by Job. 

On the other hand, to see the jobs you tracked for payroll, you can run the job costing reports excluding the Job Cost by Job and Vendor and Job Cost by Vendor and Job Summary/Detail reports.

Also, you can generate the Profit and Loss by Job report to view all paychecks related to the jobs. Here's how:

1. Click the Reports menu.
2. Scroll down to Job, Time, and Mileage.
3. Select Profit and Loss by Job.
4. Set the report period.

Let me know if you have other questions. The Community and I are here to help.

So it mixes labor and payroll taxes together?  No, that would not work for Govt contractors.

So employees cannot input their own timesheets?  That won't work for Govt contractors either.

Hello there, @KP.

I want to ensure that you'll be able to get this job costing concern sorted out.

If you could please provide some more details about the actions that you've taken, I'd be happy to take a look at it and help you in achieving your goal. Meanwhile, to speak with our representatives, you may follow the contact procedure found in this link: QuickBooks Desktop Support Team. 

Also, I've added here some resources that you can check out about handling job costing for your reference:

• Tracking job costs in QuickBooks Desktop
• Track income, costs, and profitability by project
• Understand reports

Please get back to me with additional information about the steps that you've tried. I'll be keeping an eye out to your response on this to make sure you're all set. Have a good one!

In order to get TRUE profitability on any job, you would need to include direct cost to each job AND allocate total indirect cost to each job as well, based on a "causal-beneficial" basis, meaning proportionate to a relevant factor, for example, Fringe benefits such as payroll taxes, health insurance, 401k, etc. is typically allocated as a % of total labor, OH is typically allocated among jobs based on direct labor dollars on each job as a percentage of total direct labor and G&A is typically allocated to total cost that is not G&A, so applies % rate on top of Direct, Fringe and OH cost. Then lastly should apply % fee which is actual profit rate on top of cost that is billed to customer. This will ensure you always cover TOTAL COST and make PROFIT as well.

When you only allocate direct job costs, that is like your kid saying he supports himself on his part-time deli job, not counting that he lives in your house where bills include mortgage, utilities, cable, internet, food, etc.

Hi kp,

You can include your total labor cost in the journal entry of your payroll expense. And mark it as billable to the job. I'll guide you through how it is done.

1. In your journal entry, Debit your payroll expenses and add your labor cost or vendor cost.
2. Enter a Memo for your reference.
3. Under the Name column, choose the job.
4. In the next line, Credit the expense from your bank.
5. Click Save & Close.

Once done, run the Job Profitability Summary report to see the transaction.

Feel free to read this article for more information: Tracking job costs in QuickBooks Desktop.

You might also want to check our page for future reference: Inventory and projects.

You can always leave a comment anytime if you need help with anything else.

We have struggled with this issue for a while. We need real job cost based on billable rates. Have you found a solution?

Hello there, @Kat24.

If you're using QuickBooks Online (QBO), this option isn't available as of the moment.

However, if you're using QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), then, you can do this by following these steps:

1. Open your QBDT account.
2. Click on Employees at the top menu bar.
3. Select Payroll Center.
4. Select Pay Employees.
5. Click on Start Unscheduled Payroll. 
6. Select an employee and click on Open Paycheck Details.
7. Fill in the necessary information on the Preview Paycheck page, and select a customer under the Customer: Job column.
8. Click on Save and close.

Feel free to drop a comment below if you have any other questions. I'll be right here to help!

They are already hitting the GL through the payroll entry. We don’t use payroll through QB. We use a third party payroll company. I found a way to get the costs into the projects, however, while not hitting the GL. 

Hello kp,

We are new to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions - Manufacturing and Warehouse version. We are using TSheets and a third party company to do our payroll. It sounds like we are having the same problem that you were having. I can only get TSheets to transfer over hours by job, not dollars. The payroll company just gives me the gross salaries, time worked, taxes, and deductions - nothing broken out by jobs. We are having a problem in getting the direct labor to go in the various jobs. On most programs, you can see the hours and dollars posting together on the job. We have the details for hours, just not dollars to match unless I re-do the payroll with Excel and post it manually.

It sounds like you found a solution. Would you mind sharing that with me?

Thanks.

Thanks for joining this thread, @How2. Let me chime in to share a few insights about how Tsheets works in QuickBooks. 

When Tsheets imports the time, it does not post to any account. Once you use this to an expense or payroll, that's the time you will see the dollars or amounts posted to the Chart of Accounts. 

I'm also sharing our help article that might help you in the future. You can read through: Fix a paycheck with missing timesheet info. It gives you an idea about how to handle missing timesheet information of your employee's paycheck. 

Don't hesitate to message us again if you have more questions. We're always happy to assist. 

I don't use T-sheets, but an outside payroll service.

In my world (Govt contracts) require GAAP accrual-basis accounting for small biz as prerequisite for DCAA/FAR compliance including job costing Timesheet hours to flow to Customer Billings, Timekeeping and Payroll are separate functions but are both components of the same process. 

3 Steps:

1) Timesheets are updated online daily by employees recording hours worked to jobs assigned.  

2) QB missing link

3) Payroll (3rd party service) takes Gross Pay, deduct taxes and spits Net Pay as Direct Deposits.

Step 2 is Job Cost Accounting, where Timesheet hours by Job are converted to dollars to pay employees (at pay rate) and bill customers (at billing rates).  For 30 years, QB can't do this yet, but I keep trying by sharing this info in forum, hoping one day to benefit small Govt contractors here. 

Until then, I cannot recommend QB to any of them, so 90 less clients for QB, just from me.

Thanks for joining this conversation, teamchambie and Teri Wilt.

As shared by my colleague katherinejoyceO, timesheet hours won't affect any accounts in QuickBooks Desktop.

To make sure it'll reflect on the reports, you'll have to enter a journal entry and add the appropriate customers and jobs. I'll show you how:

1. Click the Company menu, then choose Make General Journal Entries.
2. In the Make General Journal Entries window, change the date and fill in the entry number if necessary.
3. Under the Account field select correct one from the drop-down list.
4. Enter the amount under Credit column, tab to Name column and select the vendor name from the drop-down list.
5. In the next line, select the offset account and enter the amount under Debit column.
6. Add the customer or job under the Name column.
7. Click Save & Close.

In case you need tips and related articles in the future, visit our QuickBooks Community help website for reference: QBDT Self-help.​

Please reach out to me if you need additional help or anything else. I'm always ready to assist. Have a good day.